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Hi guys! I started learning sign language just two weeks ago now - I’ve found my favourite way to learn is by doing songs! Here’s me doing 7 years.. I have decoded the signs myself so there may be some discrepancies but I hope you enjoy😁https://youtu.be/KezRL--Ahqk

Enjoy!

Verse 1:

Hi everyone. Excuse my first attempts, it is easier when I don’t have an audience but I need to push myself out of my comfort zone otherwise what is the point of learning? I have always wanted to learn. I have also signed my kids up, who I am helping to teach and practise.

hello, My names merrie and I'm from London, I hope that was signed ok. really enjoying the course so far and I cant wait to improve.

Hi everyone, hope you are all staying safe. I wanted to have a go at practising my BSL by introducing my self a little bit. Please feel free to give any tips if there is anything I don't do correctly. Thank you, Alice x P.s. I had a little list in front of me as a reference for what I wanted to say, so excuse me if I keep looking over. Also I realise my face looks really red, but it's just the lighting and my acne

I fell in love with my boyfriend and we where having normal conversations and then we went on a date and we had background music on and I said how wonderful the song was and he told me he couldn’t hear it and told me he was deaf I’m not going to let that stand in the way and I want to be able to communicate with him on a level that he feels more comfortable with

Hi, I have just completed level one and want to practice before getting stuck into level two! I noticed that there were soooo many beginners who wanted to practice. This website seems to provide a space for video chat now! Shall we get organised??? Maybe on Sunday evenings at 6pm BST we could meet in the online video chat rooms to practice. Anyone up for it? Thanks and hope to sign with you soon! Hope

Hi everyone! I am Hannah and I'm 36. I am from east Sussex (which I forgot to sign in my video!!) I have wanted to learn sign language since I was a teen but never got around to it. Unfortunately now due to chronic illness I no longer work and have the time to learn. There is also a dead person in my building who loves to chat but it can be difficult sometimes so I figured now is my chance!!

Hi all, Im Rob im 24 years old from Preston in the UK. I am deaf in both ears and have been all my life. I'm learning sign language so that in the future I can help deaf people in fitness and help them achieve their fitness goals. I am currently living out in Australia in Melbourne. I would love to connect with as many of you as i can on instagram and help have some accountability for learning sign language.

Hi Amy, I would just sign Brothers, sisters I none. From what I understand you put the topic/subject first. Hope this help. Anybody let me know if this is incorrect please. All learning together

Hello Everyone Myself and a few other individuals have started a group chat session every Saturday 2pm (GMT). We have already had 1 session and found it very useful. For those wanting to join in on our practise sessions please dm me or comment down below. We are currently using zoom, and I will send you a link to the scheduled meeting. If you are just a beginner don't be alarmed or think you are unable to join. I am doing this so that we can actually communicate with each other and benefit with other peoples experience and practise with BSL. On the day I will send/post the link to the meeting for everyone to join. Come Join In!

Try this - [sign], mean, what?

Hi, I have just started learning BSL as a hearing person and was wondering if i could join your zoom call next week as I would love to practice with people! Thanks!

Would anyone be interested joining a Facebook group to practice. I'm finding people aren't around here very often. Hopefully this will be allowed as it's purely for improving our BSL. It's called BSL forum

Hi! My name is Codie, I am 18 years old and I have started learning BSL. I am hoping to start university in September, where I will be moving from the countryside to the city to study a course which allows me to work with young children. In my work experience, I have come across children with a range of additional needs, including one boy who had never learned to speak, but was always listening and learning. Nobody in the school knew how to correctly communicate with him, meaning he was often subconsciously excluded by the other young children who found it difficult to be around him. Along with this, I work part time in retail and understand the importance of allowing people to be independent. Learning sign language would make my work place more accessible for those who are deaf or hard of hearing, and increase the independence of some people in my area who find it difficult to be alone due to needing to communicate in non-verbal ways. Along with this, the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic has forced me to leave school early and caused a lot of uncertainty. Learning this new skill is not only beneficial to other people, but also to myself, as it allows me to feel like I'm achieving something, even if it is only minor like learning one or two new signs. I'm excited to see how the rest of my learning goes and what else I can achieve, and to see how BSL helps my day to day life.

hello, i am Anouska. i am 37 and a mother of 3 all with special needs. i first used sign to help my then non-verbal daughter (asd) she can now talk for the most part but has a very bad stutter. i was born deaf but had an operation when i was 5 and after i had to have speech therapy to help me talk "normal". i can lip read but now my hearing is going again and i would like to be able to communicate with people. i have wanted to learn sign properly for many yrs but things always seemed to get in the way. with it being lockdown i have to time to dedicate to learning what i think is a very important skill for anyone to learn/know. i hope to see BSL being taught in all schools in the UK.

Hi, I have recorded a little video of me practicing what I have learnt. I'm on week 3. Any feedback would be really appreciated. I still feel like I'm really slow and I can't do any facial expressions or mouth any words.

Hi everyone. I started learning BSL because i became ill with Menier's disease, and was told i would become deaf, which i have but use hearing aids. I love BSL and have just finised level 3 woohoo.

This one’s an awkward bugger. I have ADP myself so I’d like to be able to sign it unfortunately, using two popular and seemingly well respected BSL online dictionaries has got me this far: sound over-thinking fingerspelling: d i s o r d e r sound process regulation (shaking head to signify disregulation) anyone got a better idea? Would be a great help ! also this is my first post . I don’t do introduction posts, so just saying hi!

Hello, I am Casey, I recently started learning BSL because it seems like a very useful skill to have. I am greatly enjoying the course so far!

Nice to meet you all! My name is Xenia Lopez and I am from Spain, but soon moving to the Scotland. I have been learning BSL for 4 months, and I wish to continue getting better.

Hi, My name is Carrie and I am learning BSL coz when I was in college(long time ago) there was a lady in my class who was deaf. I was fascinated on how she was communicating with her interpreter. Over the years I have picked up a few words but recently my nephew is not verbally communicating so we are using some signs so he can let us know what he wants. This has made me want to learn the full BSL as I work in care and would come in handy as well if I need to speak to anyone who is deaf.

Hi Littlebird, I completely understand how you feel. I think the receptive was the exam I was most nervous about. One of the things that actually helped me was I convinced myself I wasn't going to pass on the first time and decided to treat my exam as a practice test instead. As luck would have it (and I think luck is involved) I did end up passing and I think it was down to the following points below. I'm not sure if it will help you as everyone is different but I hope this helps: Like you, I watched a lot of BSL Zone but especially the interview style shows (e.g. Close Up) as I felt this was the most similar to the Signature Level 3 receptive exam. There were two things I focused on while watching - practising writing notes without looking down and also getting myself familiar with the feeling of not understanding everything and not panicking. I knew that if I started to panic I would completely lose concentration so I needed to practise experiencing that feeling and trying to overcome it and continue. I also used the Signature Level 3 Homework content to practise. At the time I felt that it was not worth the money I spent on it as I didn't think it was very helpful but in hindsight I think watching these videos did help. If you only have a few days, it might not be worth purchasing and the SignWorld content might be similar. When watching the videos, the main thing I practised was writing without looking down, getting used to not understanding everything and trying to pick out key details such as numbers and names. On that note, I did a quick refresher of regional numbers before the exam as I found this quite difficult. This website was helpful with that: https://bslsignbank.ucl.ac.uk/regional/numbersigns/ Trying to recognise fingerspelling made me very nervous so I practised this as much as possible when watching any BSL videos and also by using the game on this website: https://www.signlanguageforum.com/bsl/fingerspelling/fingerspelling-game/. If you haven't used it before it is really helpful as practising your understanding and can be speeded up to make it more difficult. I used YouTube videos to practise too, for example the National Deaf Children's Society YouTube channel was helpful as it had videos like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiLPtwNKczw. I have to admit that the exam I did happened to be on a topic I was quite familiar with, which helped massively so I think luck is part of it. I practised the format of the exam too, so that I had the timings and the structure clear in my head so that there wouldn't be any surprises. For example, if you're watching a YouTube video or a BSL Zone video, try to watch it the same number of times that you would be able to watch it in the test. I tried to learn some key dates, names and facts to help me recognise these if they came up. This is quite hard when you have so many topics but it definitely does help. There is a Facebook Group called BSL Level 3 Certificate which is helpful too- lots of advice and questions answered. I really hope it goes well. I kept asking myself why on earth I was doing this to myself so it's also important to remember that although this is really difficult it is a worthwhile thing that you are doing and no matter what happens with the exam, you are gaining skills that are really valuable! If it also helps to know, our class all did a mock exam a couple of weeks before the real thing and we all failed the mock but all of us apart from one passed the real exam (and the one who didn't pass the first time, passed the second time). Best of luck and I really hope it goes well.

I have just restarted trying to learn a bit of BSL - it is almost 2 years since I started and then gave up! I am planning on completing the BSL online course this time and hope to find someone to practise signing with. I attend weekly lip reading classes

Hi! My name is Tam, I live near Leeds and I'm learning BSL because as a disabled person myself I want to be more inclusive to others and broaden my world view. I'm a sixth form student but by September I will be in university!

Hey folks! I've always liked the idea of sign languages conceptually, and though I have no friends or family who actually know BSL, it's been a goal for a couple of years to finally get around to learning it. Figured I'd finally use the new year to motivate me to start it up properly, and it's been a lot of fun so far memorising signs and practicing with myself in the mirror 😁 I'm based in London so I figure I'll meet or come across someone who knows BSL eventually, hopefully by then I'll be somewhat proficient and can surprise them with more than just introducing myself! Feel free to get in touch, maybe then I can chat about it with someone else who's learning instead of me continuing to annoy my flatmate with the latest thing I've learned 🙂

I think it would be great if at some point the London Newbies get together! I find that I've learnt the signs for the lessons, and can pass the tests, but when I watch videos of other people signing on here, I get lost very quickly - and hopefully meeting people can help!

Hi everyone, My name is Fran. I've made learning BSL my 2022 New Years Resolution. I've not really met anyone learning/needing to use BSL to communicate, so it's really been a solo effort to try and learn something new! I hope that one day, with a bit more confidence I might be able to organise the occasional BSL weekend coffee morning in North-West London area, where new learners (like me) and more experienced people might be able to get together and help each other develop their BSL skills as well as work towards making awareness of BSL in the community.. and maybe even make some friends!! But I've got a few more lessons to learn first!

Hi Amy, congratulations on passing your module. It's nice to read that you're feeling positive about learning sign language especially with everything going on. Good luck with your learning

Afternoon all, I have 70% loss both ears but as others mentioned didn't realise how much I relied on lip-reading and reading peoples facial expressions until we started all wearing masks. The last two years with COVID have left me feeling very isolated so I figured it would be a good idea to learn BSL and I am enjoying it very much.

Hi everyone, I'm Dawne and this is my second time round learning BSL, I did this course back in 2018 and really enjoyed it. I had recently started wearing hearing aids (back in 2018) and realised how much my hearing was a barrier for me. This got me thinking of learning BSL (in case my hearing ever got worse). I really enjoyed the course but once I finished it I didn't put it into practise! I have re signed to the course as it will be part of my professional development at work. I work in a primary school and want to be confident (and able) to communicate with children in a non verbal way. So here I am ready to go again with the incentive to sign what I learn! Good luck to everyone learning BSL. Thanks for reading Dawne

I'm learning BSL for myself and to be able to communicate with others in a similar situation. I've grown up deaf - I had 2 grommets operations as a child and was told to start wearing HA until I grew out of my condition (approx 18 months)... Fast forward 12 years and they realised I also had a deteriorating sensorineural condition, so my hearing gets progressively worse. I wear bilateral hearing aids and increasingly rely on lip reading, but it's not always possible, especially with the current mask wearing, and frankly it's exhausting. I'm 'lucky' in that I can talk and communicate well, and I'm intelligent so I've found ways of adapting, meaning I often get told I "'don't seem deaf" (whatever that means!). Although I'm grateful to not be treated as incapable, this attitude makes it so hard for me to actually be myself around people, I always have to work to hear and it can be really difficult when people don't understand that I actually do struggle. So I'm learning BSL in the hope of being able to communicate with more people, to make my own life easier for those days that I don't have the energy to try to hear and lip read, and to make the world that bit more accessible for so many people.

Does anyone actually use this website to communicate with each other? Every time I am on a rarely see others post or commune with each other or occupy the video chat rooms. Currently I have hit a wall in my lessons and would like to actually try to practice beginner sign language with another user. I have learned the majority of the signs from the now completed course, give or take a few. And would like to practice full conversation with other individuals (questions, day to day talk, how to correctly sign this particular sentence, etc). Thanks for taking the time to read this. And please reach out if interested.

I am the Intention Coach (health coach and performance artist). Essentially I teach embodiment through meditation, yoga, performing, massage therapy and exercise. With embodiment in mind, I am quickly learning that BSL isn’t just a langue, it’s a form of therapy and I’m only a few lessons in but it feels amazing to connect with langue and communicate in such a way I’m going to be taking a year-long vow of silence from October 2021-2022, but during this time I wanted to ensure that I could still express how I felt etc… So I decided what better way that to learn sign language!

I just finished the final assessment today!🥳 I'm really sad it's over but I'm definitely going to keep learning and practising

Hey here’s a snippet of a beautiful song in BSL/SSE! You can find loads more on my Instagram and I upload videos with BSL Interpretation on my YouTube 🥰

Hi guys! I'm Kate, I study Criminology with Sociology, I'm from Manchester. I looooove Harry Potter and crime documentaries, but also obsessed with Ru Paul's drag race 😂. I'd love some friends to practice BSL with, even though I am relatively new to learning I'd love the practice and hopefully we can help eachother!

Hey everyone! I am super excited to be here My daughter was born with a hearing impairment and wears a hearing aid every day, all day. Since I found out about her HI, I have made a conscious effort to include her in the deaf children's community and try to promote the inclusion of deaf students more in schools (I have been a school teacher for a decade, so I started a BSL project in my previous school to do this). I took my BSL Level 1 exam (Signature) last week and am expected to pass with flying colours! Yay! With that said, I am unbelievably excited to start my Level 2 in September and have been searching high and low for a group / forum just like this, where I can meet other BSL students / people from the deaf community and practice my skills. I look forward to meeting many of you soon (although, likely through Zoom!) Best wishes, Sarah

Hello, My name is Richard and I work as a maths teacher in a school for the deaf and have started learning BSL. It is really enjoyable and tricky at the same time. The hardest part is all the regional variations, as I learn a sign from some where and use it in lessons and get told, nooo........... its this on...... Arhhhh! But this happens in all languages, multiple worlds same meaning, and different sentence structure. Just need to get used to it. I don't have a web cam so I can't sign my intro, sorry...

Usaid Tariq is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Topic: BSL Weekly Meeting Time: Jun 27, 2020 02:00 PM London Every week on Sat, 7 occurrence(s) Jun 27, 2020 02:00 PM Jul 4, 2020 02:00 PM Jul 11, 2020 02:00 PM Jul 18, 2020 02:00 PM Jul 25, 2020 02:00 PM Aug 1, 2020 02:00 PM Aug 8, 2020 02:00 PM Please download and import the following iCalendar (.ics) files to your calendar system. Weekly: https://us04web.zoom.us/meeting/upwsc-ivpz4rG9X39Jbvk4SWxbiIEpogQ7Is/ics?icsToken=98tyKu6grz8rHd2QsRiGR7Y-BY-gd-3xmCVcjfplz0bPATZYNjDBLuBLG5dvH9_h Join Zoom Meeting https://us04web.zoom.us/j/78141795111?pwd=Q0JjRXBOdmJRMGN2KzF1SktkWU56dz09 Meeting ID: 781 4179 5111 Password: 3dCqGn

Hi Vicky! I am learning level 1 the same as your daughter! I know I am slightly older (20) but once I learn more I'd love to practice with your daughter if she's up for it

I'm Carlos, I'm currently studying business in Edinburgh. I think there are so many ways of communication like BSL and thanks to this course I will be able to communicate with BSL users. I'm really enjoying this course.

Hi I'm Vicky I started learning Sign Language when I was in sixth form. Myself and a friend wanted to learn so managed to convince enough of our friends to tag along so that the local college would have enough people to start the level 1 course. I had always felt my hearing wasn't great and having friends that could sign in noisy environments meant I wasn't missing out. nearly 10 years later I would find out that my hearing wasn't really the problem on paper that is perfect but I had actually spent all my life living with Auditory Processing Disorder and there was nothing that could be done to make it better. I continued with sign language and gained my level 2 qualification. I personally feel all children should be taught sign language in schools. I have used it in many areas of my life: as a teenager to communicate with my friends when I struggled to hear in social situations (something which I struggled with when I moved away to uni as suddenly I didn't have that anymore), supporting customers in retail jobs, communicating with parents of children in my class who are deaf and more recently being able to communicate with the parents of one of my daughters friends both of whom are Deaf and use sign language. That said it has been many many years since I did my level 2 and not using it means you lose it. Also I started learning in Wales and then continued in England. Regional variation is a very real thing and given some of the signs I have recapped so far on this course some have possibly changed overtime to be a bit more politically correct. I am keen to revisit sign language in the hopes that this time I can keep it up. My daughter is 3 and she already knows quite a few signs and I would like to be able to give her this language along side the Welsh and English she already has. Language is part of your identity and I think sign language should be valued as such.

Hello, my name is Jo, Im starting a level 1 BSL course in September, I am a complete beginner, I havnt had any experience at all, I was advised to get as much learning in as I can before I start to give me a bit of a heads up, however I have found that alot of tutorial videos and sites that I have been on have shown to sign language slightly different to another, for example numbers. How am I supposed to know which way is correct? they are all BSL sites that I look for, I can understand if it was an American version for example, so Im a bit confused.